Category Archives: When We Were Mods

Part V – Fliers, Buttons and Other Memorabilia

Above: From my button collection: 3 Mod buttons

Fliers

Fliers were the communication lifeline for the scene. I have a collection of nearly 100 fliers from events during my time as a mod. Bands playing at clubs, parties, scooter rallies – just about any mod happening had a flier.

Above: Flyer: Mod Party in Covina

At the clubs people would hand out fliers for shows the next week, or dance clubs to go to the next night – and all of them got folded up and stuck in a pocket until I got home and thumb-tacked it to my wall.

Over time the collection kept getting added to the wall. When I took the fliers all down I put them in a folder and filed them away.

Buttons

I first started buying the little 1″ buttons when I was a high school punk rocker, in the couple of years before my mod days. When I became a mod I just kept on buying them.

Everybody wore buttons with their favorite bands on them. Some ska kids would go a little crazy with it and cover their trench coat with buttons.

Above: 4 The Jam logo buttons from my collection.

I still love the little 1″ buttons, but now I have a button machine and I can make them myself.

My Parka and it’s patches

If you were serious about being a mod you had a parka (and not a trench coat) to keep you warm on your scooter.

The parka not only kept you warm but protected your clothes, which was very important. When you got to the club you wanted to look sharp.

Above: One of the patches that used to be on my parka – The Modbeats.

New mods would usually cover their parka with patches of bands like The Jam, Madness or The Specials as well as British flags, targets, and anything else that looked mod. The longer you were around the less patches you usually had on your parka… towards the end I had only one patch on mine, a GO patch.

Above: Me on my scooter wearing my parka with the GO patch on it.

Like the fliers I collected, I hung on to my patches as well, and filed them away. I kept my parka, of course. My wife now uses it when we go camping.

Other Memorabilia

I kept all kinds of little souvenirs from those days – my ticket stubs from The Untouchables shows, various drawings I made, a bunch of photos (as you already know), magazines and other odds and ends.

One reason I collected all these souvenirs was this amazing book that my friend Mark loaned me when I first became a mod called “Mods!”

Above: Mods! by Richard Barnes – one of my inspirations to document my mod days and collect these fliers, buttons, ticket stub, etc.

This “Mod Bible” was filled with old photos, fliers and information about the original mods in England in the early 60’s… Everything you needed to know about being a mod.

I wanted my own collection of mod stuff to look back on someday, maybe put it into a book, or, as it turns out, post on a website for others to enjoy.

My Scooter

By April of 1984, two years after I had first bought my scooter and began this amazing journey, I was coming to the end of this season of my life. I was headed towards new things… I was taking art classes at Orange Coast College and bought a Roland Juno 60 Synthesizer. I was becoming more interested in going on psychedelic trips then dancing the night away.

My wonderful Vespa scooter was nearing the end of it’s life. I had already replaced the engine and just about every replaceable part from front to back.

One day I came out from my art class to find my scooter missing from the college parking lot. The police found it a week later; spray-painted, out of gas and abandoned. It was never the same after that, and a few months later I stripped it to the chassis and sold the parts off to friends.

The cannibalized carcass was left in a garage in Costa Mesa at the house I lived in that summer. It was less than a glorious ending for such a great machine.

Post-Mod

After my mod days were over I went on to play keyboards for a couple of bands, Train of Thought and Zombie Birdhouse. I started writing poetry, and making strange little recordings with my synthesizer.

In the Fall of 1986 I met a girl named Tania, and now we’ve been together almost 25 years. Most days I work on art projects, walk my two dogs and think about philosophical issues.

Part IV – The Untouchables and the LA Mods

The cover story* of first issue of Twist magazine was about The Untouchables and began:

“The show didn’t so much begin as explode. Seven men run onto the stage, grab instruments and microphones and begin an energy assault…”

The Untouchables (or The UTs as they were also called for short) usually played for a couple hours at a time and when I first saw them at the ON Klub I think I must of danced for 3 to 4 hours, or at least that how I remember it…

Above: VIDEO – News report about the LA Mods and The Untouchables. It’s about as accurate as most news stories…

The Untouchables at The Roxy

By late 1982 they had become so popular that they started having regular shows at The Roxy, where I must have seen them play a dozen times.

At The Roxy the shows were filled to capacity. The Untouchables hadn’t been signed yet and every time they played I felt the anticipation of something big about to happen.

I’m glad I was able to get my older brother David to come to a show and bring his camera. David was a roadie for various punk bands and wasn’t into our mod scene, but he liked The Untouchables and their ska tunes. Thanks to David I still have these photos of The UTs.

Chuck Askerneese, the lead singer, Herman his brother who played bass and Jerry Miller, the percussionist, would often show up at The Bullet to hang out and dance. I got to know them a little, mostly I was on the “head-nod and smile” level of acquaintance.

Their lead guitarist and main songwriter, Clyde Grimes, was a genuinely cool guy with a clean style – very mod. I got to know Clyde better than any of the other UTs, and I often find myself missing him.

Above: The Untouchables at The Concert Factory – Fall 1982 – Lead Guitarist, Cylde Grimes – Photo by David Shelton

The more time I spent in LA in early 1983, the better I got to know some of The Untouchables as well as some of the mods that wrote for Twist magazine, the ones who happened to be the Face (the people to watch) of the scene.

The Scene During 1983

I remember the summer of 1983 as “The Style Council Summer” – The Jam had broken up and Paul Weller, the lead singer had started a new band with the keyboardist from The Merton Parkas, Mick Talbot.

Our movement had grown very large and was beginning to fragment. We had groups of ska kids, scooter boys, soul boys, power pop mods, skinheads and psychedelic mods – and every group had it’s purists that didn’t like the other groups.

I was one of the soul boys and we headed off in the Northern Soul direction.

Above: Flyer – Out On The Floor – 60t and Northern Soul Music at The Concert Factory with DJ Jon Shelton (that was me)…

We removed all the patches off of our parkas and started adopting the more casual style Paul Weller was now wearing. We listened to his new songs Money Go Round and Long Hot Summer and smiled and danced.

There were weeks when I rarely made it back home to my parents house in Irvine. Instead I was often crashing, along with my friends, at different mod’s houses, always on the go…

Above: The Untouchables second single with several backstage passes still attached…

I think one of the last UTs shows that I went to was when they played at UCI in Irvine on August 7th. I still have my backstage pass from the show, and I remember them dedicating the song “Free Yourself” to my girlfriend Angela and me… The next month we did, and broke-up.

Part III – Clubs, Bands and Music

Above: The Concert Factory on Mod Night in the Fall of 1982 when The Untouchables played – Photo by David Shelton

Orange County Clubs and Bands

In Orange County we had 3 places that had “Mod Nights” with bands and DJs on a regular basis – The Concert Factory, Circle City and Radio City.

Both The Concert Factory and Circle City had their own mod scenes, while Radio City was just a place to go see shows.

The Concert Factory was in Costa Mesa and was the place where we moved our center of action after the summer at Pizza Pete‘s.

The place used to be called The Cuckoo’s Nest, a legendary Orange County punk rock club. My brother David (the one who took many photos included with this story) got his nose broken there several years before defending the bass player from Jodie Foster’s Army.

One of the earliest mod bands in OC was The Jetz, and they played often at The Concert Factory. Other band that played there were The Modbeats, The Question, Sidewalk Society, The Targets, The Torries, The Shapes, Manual Scan, The Fixation, The Howling Men, I-Spy, The Three O’Clock, and The Underground.

Above: A group of mods from Corona Del Mar at The Concert Factory – Photo by David Shelton

Every month or so, The Untouchables from LA played, who were, hands down, the most popular band. They sold the place out every time they played.

From Orange County To LA

During late 1982 and into 1983 I started spending a lot more of my time up in LA and Hollywood, going to The Club Lhasa every Wednesday night for The Bullet.

Above: Flier for The Bullet at The Club Lhasa

This was THE mod club to go to at the time. Bryan Fox was the DJ and spun tunes you loved and ones you hadn’t heard of yet. There was plenty of dance floor, a big side room to hang out in, and it felt like we had the run of the place.

At the same time as The Bullet was happening, The Untouchables were playing regular gigs at The Roxy and a new mod magazine came out called Twist – it was a great time to be a mod…

Music and dancing were the center around which we orbited…

For me, the music was even more important than the scooters. I was fortunate enough to have had some good friends with great tastes in music who taught me how to find the music I was looking for – the best soul song on a 7″ single that nobody else had heard yet…

Bryan Fox, the DJ from The Bullet had a really good record collection. DJ John “Rudy” Wright not only danced better than anyone and dressed extremely sharp, but also had excellent taste in music.

There was a Northern Soul guy from England named Gabby who would show up sometimes at The Bullet. He always had the most amazing singles with him in his little black bag along with baby powder for the dance floor and dancing shoes. I got a number of nice records from Gabby.

In my opinion, If there hadn’t been The Jam or The Who, if there hadn’t been Two Tone Records or if a lot of old soul singles hadn’t been waiting to be discovered, there wouldn’t have been mods.

I collected records and sometimes I would DJ at The Concert Factory. Some of my old soul singles are rather worn now, and some are a bit scratched up, but here is a mixtape of some great songs from my collection for your enjoyment. I call this mixtape Scratchin’ Soul Singles…

Part II – Orange County Mods 1982/83

Above: Mods with scooters parked outside Pizza Pete’s on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. Mine is the red and white one in the middle…

Our group of mods in 1982 wasn’t the first group of mods from Orange County, the first wave arrived a couple years before we did.

Our mod season began around the time of the last tour of The Jam in May of 1982.

Early in the summer of 1982 me and my friends Mark, Rodney, Dana and a few others started hanging out on Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach at a place called Pizza Pete’s. We would park our scooters right in front for hours, smoking cigarettes, drinking, listening to music and watching the people go by.

Soon we started to attract a number of other mod kids as word got out that a group of mods were hanging out at Pizza Pete’s every night, getting into all kinds of trouble.

The Garden Grove mods joined us as did the Huntington Beach mods, and the Costa Mesa mods and the Santa Ana mods, and then more and more…

Above: Richard “Sparky” Sihilling, one of the leaders of the Orange County scooter club called The 100 Klub

Some nights we had 30-40 scooters and 40 to 60 kids hanging out and going for late night scooter rides.

By the late summer a mod girl (whose name eludes me) who lived on Balboa Island had joined our nightly group. She had Quadrophenia on video tape and a very lenient mom – many nights we would all crash there and watch the movie until daybreak.

From 1982 through 1983 the mod scene exploded.

Soon we had several clubs like The Concert Factory, Circle City and Radio City to go to, listen to bands, hear DJs spin cool mod and ska tunes and dance. By the summer of 1983 there were hundreds of mod kids in Orange County, many with new Vespa scooters.

That spring and summer we had several scooter rallies which each had a couple hundred scooters riding together down Pacific Coast Highway.

From all corners of Orange County there were new bands forming, lots of parties to go to and various scooter or mod related things going on all the time. Or, at least that’s how it seemed to me… but then again, this was practically all I was doing.

Featured

Part I – My Scooter

This is the 1977 Vespa Rally 200 that I bought in April of 1982 for $300 when I was a senior in high school.

Before I bought this scooter I had never heard of mods, but by the time I graduated two months later I was already changing from a punk/rockabilly kid to a clean dressing, soul music loving mod.

Two mods at my high school – Mark Hackworth and Rodney Sheppard (Rodney later went on to be the guitarist for Sugar Ray) – took it upon themselves to instruct me in the proper way to be a mod – dress sharp, stay out all night, listen to the right music, and always go, go, go…

Above: (from left to right) Mark Hackworth with one of my friends at the time, Jeff.
Photo by David Shelton.

I turned 18 the same week I graduated from high school, and the next week I rode my scooter 35 miles (by freeway) from Irvine to Hollywood with a friend of mine named Jeff to go to the On Klub and see The Untouchables.

After The Untouchables played that night I joined a group of scooters headed to a party “just around the corner” and ended up getting a grand scooter tour of Hollywood and LA all they way down to the party in Santa Monica.

The party was still going at close to dawn when I got back on my scooter and rode 30 miles down the 405 freeway to my job in Irvine, just in time for work at 7:00 am.

And so it began, over 30,000 miles (before my speedometer died and I lost track) of scooter riding around Orange County and Los Angeles from the summer of 1982 through the spring of 1984.

about onehumanbeing.com

This website is designed, built and maintained by Jon, onehumanbeing.

onehumanbeing.com was established in 2008 as a way to initiate a new season of art for myself.

It is a super-project that launched a number of different sub-projects that have come and, mostly, gone (into my digital portfolio) such as redbotlovesyou.com, The Philip K. Dick Reading Club, The Turning, The MMJ Project, The MMJ Lists, The All-Seeing Eyebama, and UFOverdriver.

Most of this work has been done as Jungian experiments to explore the use of consciousness and the collective conscious as both subject matter and as an art material.